WHY DO CHILDREN WITH SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT NAME PICTURES MORE SLOWLY THAN THEIR PEERS

To examine the role of different cognitive processes in accounting for the slower naming times of children with specific language impairment (SLI) relative to peers with no language impairment (NLI), three task s designed to stress different types of processing were administered: naming pictures with the signal to respond presented at various delay intervals, naming following different durations of exposure to identic al and unrelated primes, and vocally responding to nonlinguistic stimu li. Children with SLI, aged 4 to 9.5 years, were significantly slower than their NLI age peers on naming and on responding to nonlinguistic stimuli, but the effect of delay interval before naming and of duratio n of prime exposure before naming was similar for both groups. Results suggested that speed of naming is related to the slower nonlinguistic response processing of children with SLI and not to speed of their li nguistic or perceptual processing. To examine differences in processin g that might relate to pattern of language performance we examined res ponses of two subgroups of SLI. The subgroup of children whose languag e problems involved expressive but not receptive skills was not signif icantly slower than their NLI peers. The children whose problems invol ved both expressive and receptive language were significantly slower, but this was influenced by age. Findings are discussed in terms of lan guage performance, age, task variables, and a generalized rate-limitin g factor.